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A Minnesota native since his birth, Chad Corrie has long had a love affair with his creative side. Dabbling in art, film, music and acting, it wasn't until he found writing that he began to excel at something with which he'd found a healthy outlet and addiction.

Since that time he has written a wide array of material from such varied genres as horror, sci-fi and contemporary fiction amid comic scripting, poetry, screen plays, stage plays and more. It wasn't until recently that he discovered fantasy and began to work more in this interesting and very broad genre.

Currently he is writing comic scripts, prose novels and recently moved into short dramatic skits as he continues working on a new publishing venture along with seeking out more avenues in which to see his work get published.

Visit Chad on the web at: chadcorrie.com for all the latest updates, and insights into The World of Tralodren®, podcasts, and other projects and events.

Thank you Chad for taking the time to answer some questions for us!  To start, please tell us about the latest project you've worked on.

My newest title is The Adventures of Corwyn It’s a short story collection dealing with the adventures of a bard named Corwyn Danther.  He’s a pragmatic pacifist who finds himself involved in a host of situations.  He tries to find a way out of these predicaments without having to kill anyone and/or getting killed in the conflict itself. I wanted to try a different approach to a fantasy tale and having a character and set up of this nature seemed an unique way to go.

The five tales were a fun challenge to write and showcase more of the people, places and history of The World of Tralodren®.  This is the same world setting shared by The Divine Gambit Trilogy and Tales of Tralodren™: The Beginning  (a graphic novel).

You can read more about this book and the rest by going to me website: chadcorrie.com.  I have sample chapters there to read and even a podcast series talking about Corwyn and other works I’ve done.

What inspired you to write this book?

I first cut my fantasy reading teeth on the works of Robert E. Howard. I’d read a little bit of fantasy before Howard but after I discovered him I was pulled deeper into the genre than ever before. He had a way at drawing the reader into the story and his action scenes kept a teenage boy more than excited with the visceral detail and emotional pacing that was abundant in his better works.

One thing I also enjoyed was the brevity of his tales. I didn’t know then that most of his stories had been published long ago in magazines and had to be under the restrictions of a certain word count. The story collections I’d been reading gave me the impression that Conan and Howard’s other fantasy tales were written in a serialized short story or novella format for book publication. Not being as avid a reader as I would become, the stories where just the right length to get me trained for the larger sized fare I would later encounter.

Even after I learned the truth about Howard’s work, I thought the concept of short story collections was tremendously fun. Here the hero was getting progressively older and wiser while further exploring his world in a single volume. That was the best part – I didn’t have to read five or ten novels or even wait that many years to get the next installment of his adventures. Instead, the next adventure was in the same book right after the current short story I was reading.

This certainly left an impression on me and was part of the reason why I decided to put together a collection of stories for this book. I wanted to offer a new character who could grow in the pages from story to story and help not only showcase The World of Tralodren®, but also convey to a new generation some of the same wonder and joy I felt in reading those old Howard tales.

I also wanted to take it on as a personal challenge.  I hadn’t written a short story or novella in a long time and I wanted to see if I could do it again after previously being engrossed in writing epic-sized books. I think I was able to put forth a decent offering, but I’ll let you decide the matter for yourself.

Oddly enough, the character of Corwyn Danther seemed to be a bit more of a challenge in the way he was designed. That challenge, though, helped make for some excellent story opportunities of which I believe I took good advantage. Whatever the case, the bottom line is I hope you enjoy reading these tales as much as I did writing them. 

What kind of other works have you had published?

Currently, I have five works in publication.  Three of them are part of a fantasy trilogy called The Divine Gambit Trilogy (Seer’s Quest, Path of Power, Gambit’s End) another is The Adventure of Corwyn, and the last is my first graphic novel to see publication Tales of Tralodren: The Beginning.  All of them are based in the same fantasy setting.

As a side note I also have produced a collection of podcasts.  Once series is dedicated to helping folks get a foundation developed for their own world settings, and the other two are related to myself or my work in particular.  You can read/more listen about all of them at my site:  chadcorrie.com.

Is there any aspect to your writing career that gets you in touch with your readers directly?

Yes and no.  You can argue that being online now we can connect via email and other such means but that isn’t really “connecting” in the old school “face to face” way.  Thankfully, I have been blessed to be able to get into venues that allow more “pressing of the flesh”.  These tend to be conventions, tradeshows, signings, and now events I’ve been running at libraries.  It’s more enjoyable for me, more often than not, to be able to converse with someone face to face over the faceless email or other online contact. 

I still like hearing from folks via email too, don’t get me wrong.  If it wasn’t for that during the quiet times it would be very quiet indeed.  Just if given a choice I like to get out when I can to meet readers and folks.  There is a whole energy level there to enjoy.

What character do you identify most with in your book?  How much of yourself did you put into those characters?

Actually, I knew fairly early on that Corwyn was very close to me when I started the first story.  That being said, he isn’t 100% like me but there’s enough of me in him to be a good echo of a sort nonetheless. 

Corwyn, for the most part, acts like me if I were to be stuck in my own fantasy world and have to make a life of it.  Though I’d probably carry a weapon with me and think a bit differently than he would in a lot of cases, his heart is in the right place and I can understand his reasoning perhaps better than any character I’ve yet written.

He’s also probably the closest in appearance to me than any other character I’ve yet done too.  Tall and similarly colored hair and eyes as my own add to that closeness of identity.  For me, though, I tend to relate the most to his enjoyment of the creative side of life – to learn new things and tell stories and such.  Big surprise with me being a writer and all, I know, but that makes him all the more relatable to me.

You also do graphic novel work. What drives you to continue work on your graphic novels every day?      

The major motivating factor is I always keep having ideas that want to be transformed into the medium.  I really enjoy creating and want to keep at it until they put me in my coffin. 

The comic medium is also a fun way to create as it is so visual and faster paced than traditional prose work.  It allows me to tell more stories faster than before.  It also allows me the opportunity to see what I’ve been thinking in my head become something drawn out and more tangible than a mere textual expression.  It’s such a joy to see things “become flesh” so to speak in this manner.  That is a big key in keeping me excited about working in the medium.

So how do you like writing comic scripts over prose?

It's fun really. Prose has some great benefits but also some limitations. The same is true of comic scripting. The trick I had to learn in my drafts is that one is more visual and thus more can happen in a shorter span of time than the other. I've been working on scripts for other projects and I thought the storyline was pretty full and long enough to keep the book going to the end but could tell from only the first few pages that it would fall short.

Graphic novels are just so greedy that way. They can suck in so much more than with prose because I don't have to describe so much setting and mood as I would in prose. In some ways, it's like writing stage direction. I can just put down: “An old man enters into a dark, spooky room.” And then let the artist and the notes on the story take it from there. I don't have to explain how it smells, feels, sounds, etc. I let the artist have some leeway and just put in the major details for the most part. There are times I put in more detail and info where needed, but for the most part I can put down in a short sentence or two what it might have taken me a few paragraphs before to get across to the reader.

So then do you like comics better than prose?

No. I think they are both good for various reasons, but each has their limitations. Graphic novels are hard pressed in many cases to put the reader into a certain mood or establish a certain feel. It can be done and have a certain effect, but because the nature of the product is so rapid it is often a challenge to do successfully.

A book builds upon layers and the reader is doing the work. You can set the pace by sentence structure, paragraph length, and other things so that the whole story builds at a rate you want--things are revealed in a certain way and timing. With graphic novels the idea is more like television with something is just presented in a fully realized package and you just take it in. You flow from one panel to the next almost at breakneck speed if you wished (if it wasn't for the captions and word balloons). Graphic novels are faster than prose novels over all in, my opinion, just like a sitcom is faster than a multipart television documentary.

What can you recommend for writers who are just getting started and are trying to make a name for themselves?

Don’t give up.  That would be the first bit of advice, I think.  In today’s word of instant gratification it can be hard to get into a mode of patience and having to live you life while you’re waiting to hear back from that editor, agent and/or publisher.  The important thing is to not just be idle while you wait.  There are many things you an do, from writing another work to doing some more research.  You can be productive as you wait for replies to your work.

Another thing is to enjoy the journey.  So many of us often get so focused on the end result that we miss the joy of the journey along the way.  It’s like when we were younger and couldn’t want to go on that vacation with the family and just thought about how great it would be when you got to do it only to find that once you got there it wasn’t as awesome as you thought it was going to be.  The anticipation of the thing was greater than the thing itself.  Such is the way with many things in life. 

When you get published you’ll find you just got over one hurdle and then have another before you.  So it’s best to just keep things in perspective and enjoy the process to getting that step accomplished.  If anything smile at the fact that if you’re doing something toward getting published, even it’s waiting for a reply from a submission, you’re far ahead of those folks who talk big about doing it “someday” and never have or probably ever will.

Finally, don’t let critics—good and bad—get to you.  If you attach your worth as a writer to what some critic has said about your work (again good or bad) then you have a very fragile foundation upon which you stand.  Ultimately, a review is just an opinion.  After getting some for my own work I am learning more and more that these too are part of the game of getting published and getting out there in the market.      

For example, I’ve been told by some readers they had a strong dislike about something in my previous work.  However, I’ve gotten emails from people who have read the same books that state they love the book for the very same reasons the others didn’t like it.  I’ve gotten reviews in the same vein. 

Just take what you can from the reviews to get better as a writer and then let the other stuff be.  Ultimately, if you have written a good book then an audience is out there.  The challenge is in finding that audience.  Thus that need for being more marketing savvy and driven and self-promotion oriented than authors were expected to be even ten years ago.

Which is your favorite book/work published? Is there a favorite?

I like all my work, but tend to enjoy the latest work in the pile over the rest.  That’s just my nature and many other writer’s I think too.  We tend to look at our latest work as our best and brightest—so much better than that which came before… until the next work comes along.

So in keeping with that formula I think I am going to have to say my current project I’m working on is becoming my favorite though I still hold soft spot in my heart for Tales of Tralodren: The Beginning since its still my only graphic novel on the market at the moment.  It’s also fun to see all those characters, settings, and ideas fleshed out and put down on paper. 

Thank you Chad! We wish you great success with your future projects!